Analysis of BIM application relationship with integration degree of construction environment

As the world pays more attention to low-earbon and sustainable development,there’s a growing trend in architecture,engineering and construction fields to construct greener,more energy efficient and more sustainable buildings with the help of building information modeling(BIM).As BIM application becomes popular in industry,more and more scholars and engineers point out that an integrated construction environment is better for BIM’s fully functional capability.This paper illustrates the relationship between BIM application and an integrated construction environment based on case survey data.It is found that even though an integration construction environment is not necessary in BIM application,the statistical results showed that DBB(design-bid-build)and CM(construction management)modes have great differences in BIM’s application implementation scope and implementation deepness,while DB and CM modes do not.     

Life cycle assessment environmental data for structural steel construction in Greece

The construction industry is a critical sector in relation to sustainable development as its optimisation in terms of the consumption of resources can provide significant environmental benefits. To achieve this, a number of tools and methodologies have been developed to assist decision making. Life cycle assessment is one of the most acknowledged and widely used methodologies to assess the sustainability of construction works. Its efficient use, however, requires environmental data that in some cases are not yet available. Especially for sectors such as steel construction in which the potential for sustainable development is increased due to the recycling and reuse potential of the material, the lack of such data slows sustainability-related progress down. The current research addresses this issue by collecting primary environmental data for cold-formed structural steel and compiling the required data-sets. The data-sets are used to assess the environmental impact of an existing steel building and identify how and to what extent the environment is burdened by its construction. The findings of the research include the aforementioned environmental data which can be used in environmental analyses related to construction projects, while additional conclusions concerning the environmental impact of steel buildings in terms of quantity and type were also drawn.     

Stakeholder requirements for building energy efficiency in mass housing delivery: the House of Quality approach

Threats of climate change and future energy price uncertainty have led to a global debate on energy efficiency, particularly the energy efficiency of housing projects. This serious global problem calls for improvement in energy efficiency from all sectors, especially the building sector which is considered a major energy consumer. Adoption of energy efficiency design practices in the housing sector has been perceived to have a significant potential to contribute greatly to the sustainable building process. Additionally, most studies indicate that the understanding and integration of stakeholder requirements has an enormous potential towards increasing the sustainability perspectives that relate to social, environmental, economic and technical issues of buildings. However, there is enough evidence from several studies suggesting a lack of common perspective on stakeholder requirements towards building energy efficiency (BEE) in housing development. Hence it is argued that stakeholders’ alignment for energy efficiency improvement is crucial and a fundamental challenge that needs to be addressed if the goal of energy use reduction in buildings is to be achieved. The aim of this paper is to identify the important building energy requirements among stakeholders of mass housing projects and their impact on technical characteristics of mass housing projects. Through a survey of building industry stakeholders and using the House of Quality model for analysis of the data obtained, the study identified five (5) most rated BEE stakeholders’ requirements in respect of housing development. The study gives a new insight into the considerations of building stakeholders regarding energy efficiency. This insight is useful towards achieving sustainable building solutions that meet the sustainability features of housing development in Ghana and other countries with similar energy and housing challenges.     

试论重庆市农业与生态环境协调发展

重庆市是我国农村面积最广、农业比重最大和农业贫困人口最多的直辖市。维护好该市的农村生态环境，解决好农业发展问题，不仅对重庆市社会经济的持续发展有着十分重要的意义，而且对确保三峡工程的安全运行、促进长江中下游地区的可持续发展同样具有十分重要的作用。在分析重庆市农业生产特点和农村生态环境现状的基础上，指出该市农村生态环境建设与农业协调发展面I临的主要问题有：尖锐的人地矛盾；巨大的移民和脱贫压力；频繁的自然灾害。提出该市农业和生态环境协调发展的对策：通过发展特色经济，优化产业结构；发展生态农业，实现农业资源的可持续利用；把退耕还林与扶贫开发、自然保护区建设相结合，确保生态环境的建设与保护；将移民搬迁与地质灾害整治、库区周边湿地的保护与利用结合起来，加强抵御自然灾害的能力建设。     

Creating sustainable communities: skills and learning in Ontario’s small urban municipalities

This article presents the pilot study results of a province-wide survey of skills and learning in sustainable community development in Ontario, Canada. The pilot project focuses on the testing of an online survey to examine skills building for creating sustainable communities in Ontario’s small urban municipalities. The survey examined the generic, technical and specialist skills, whether they are skills already acquired and/or required by professionals and practitioners for creating sustainable communities. The survey targeted 74 small urban municipalities and 300 respondents by profession. Building sustainable communities require ‘upskilling’ of the workforce as it poses a challenge to those hoping to make a real progress and development at the local level.     

Green energy clusters and socio-technical transitions: analysis of a sustainable energy cluster for regional economic development in Central Massachusetts,USA

As the societal benefits associated with transitioning to more sustainable, less fossil fuel-reliant energy systems are increasingly recognized by communities throughout the world, the potential of creating ‘green jobs’ within a ‘green economy’ is attracting much attention. Green energy clusters are increasingly promoted throughout the world as a strategy to simultaneously promote economic vitality and stimulate a sustainable energy transition. In spite of their emerging role in regional-scale sustainability planning efforts, such initiatives have not been considered within the sustainability transitions literature. This paper explores the development of one such regional sustainable energy cluster initiative in Central Massachusetts in Northeastern USA to consider the potential for such cluster initiatives to contribute to socio-technical transition in the energy system. Since 2008, a diverse set of stakeholders in Central Massachusetts, including politicians, universities, businesses, local citizens, and activists, have been working toward facilitating the emergence of an integrated cluster of activity focused on sustainable energy. Through interviews with key actors, participant observation, and document review, this research assesses the potential of this cluster initiative to contribute to a regional socio-technical transition. The empirical details of this case demonstrate that sustainable energy cluster initiatives can potentially accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by promoting institutional thickness, generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, and building trust between multiple and diverse stakeholders in the region. This research also contributes to emerging efforts to better ground socio-technical transitions in geographic space.     

The role of integrated performance model in sustainable envelope design and assessment

The issue of sustainable design and assessment of the residential building envelope is a complex process that requires considering many factors including life cycle performance. As such, in an effort to develop an integrated approach that combines relevant sustainable development factors and life cycle concepts for sustainable designs, an integrated performance model (IPM) was developed. The IPM is an essential tool to aid the sustainable design of the residential building envelope, reduce the carbon emission and the whole residential building energy consumption, thereby ensuring sustainable performance of the building envelope and building sustainability. The IPM application indicates that sustainable performance of the building envelope in extreme weather and climatic condition is significantly influenced by the energy efficiency performance of the development.     

An integrative approach to modeling land-use changes: multiple facets of agriculture in the Upper Yangtze basin

Land change science has emerged as a fundamental component of global environmental change and sustainability research. Still, much remains to be learned before scientists can fully assess future roles of land-use/cover changes (LUCC) in the functioning of the Earth system and identifying conditions for sustainable land use. The objective of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the complex interactions of human and natural drivers underlying LUCC. We do so by developing and estimating a novel structural model of land use and using spatially explicit longitudinal observations from the Upper Yangtze basin of China. Our analysis focuses on the multiple dimensions of agriculture—not only cropland use itself, but also grain production, soil erosion, and related technical change—and our data cover 31 counties over four time periods from 1975 to 2000. Our results show that technical change plays an important role in supplying food on a limited cropland; limiting cropland expansion in turn reduces soil erosion, which then benefits grain production in the longer term. It is also found that policies and institutions have significant impacts on land use and the status of soil erosion. Together, these results carry some great implications to sustainable land use and ecosystem management.     

关于建立我国资源节约型经济体系的认识

从可持续发展角度看,我国资源节约型经济体系机制应在坚持集约经济和适应消费的基础上,强调社会生产与消费两者间的平衡和协调发展,欲达此目的,加快市场经济体系的完善和国家宏观指导是保障这一体系机制正常运转的根本条件。     

Technical efficiency and agricultural sustainability–technology gap of maize producers in Fars province of Iran

Fars has a special place in Iran in terms of natural resources and diverse climate aiming this province to increase production of major crops such as corns. In light of increasing domestic production and preventing yield loss of maize, many farmers utilize high quantities of pesticides, chemical fertilizers and over-extract groundwater without considering immediate and long-term consequences of such operations on environment. The main purpose of this study is to investigate technical efficiency and sustainability–technology gap ratio (STGR) of maize producers by agricultural sustainability in Fars province in Iran. Technical efficiency is considered as a key element among the triple elements of sustainable development (economic, social and ecological). Applying model of agricultural sustainability and compromise programming method, regions were classified into three groups (sustainable, relatively sustainable and unsustainable), and data were collected interviewing a total of 300 farmers in 2008–2009 from Kazerun, Firouzabad and Marvdasht chosen randomly and systematically as representatives of these three groups. Technical efficiencies and STGRs were calculated for the regions applying stochastic production frontier, regional stochastic frontier functions and the metafrontier. The results indicate that assuming the same technology between the fields (traditional methods) leads to overestimation of technical efficiency. Mean STGRs in Marvdasht, Firouzabad and Kazerun were found to be 59.3, 71.1 and 68.9, respectively. This suggests that technical efficiency and STGR of relatively sustainable regions are higher than those of the unsustainable regions. Thus, farmers in these areas can reduce gap between technology and agricultural sustainability levels via achieving metatechnology that is compatible with sustainable agriculture.     

城镇化与粮食生产技术效率的互动关系研究

城镇化和粮食生产在我国都占据着十分重要的地位,供给侧改革背景下如何提升粮食生产技术效率,促进城镇化和粮食生产的协调发展,具有十分重要的意义。文章以1998—2014年全国29个省(市、区)为研究对象,分别采用熵值法和DEA方法对城镇化指标体系和粮食生产技术效率指标体系进行了构建,其中,城镇化指标体系被细分为人口城镇化、土地城镇化和经济城镇化三个子系统,在此基础上采用面板协整方程、误差修正模型、脉冲响应方程和方差分解模型对城镇化和粮食生产技术效率之间的互动关系进行了分析。研究发现:(1)城镇化和粮食生产技术效率之间的长期均衡关系对短期的影响存在功能区差异。对于全国层面、粮食主产区以及粮食主销区,长期正面效应大于短期负面效应,对于粮食平衡区,长期正面效应小于短期正面效应。(2)总体来说,城镇化和粮食生产技术效率响应之间的变动为正,并逐渐趋向一个稳定的水平。(3)城镇化和粮食生产技术效率的预测方差受自身的冲击要更高,且二者对预测方差的贡献度呈现出区域差异。最后,提出要加强粮食生产的科技投入和资本投入,实施"藏粮于技"和"藏粮于地"策略,并加强对粮食生产领域的生态环境治理,提高粮食的可持续发展能力。此外,因地制宜制定合适的城镇化和粮食发展策略,适当引导和鼓励社会资本参与粮食生产项目和社会化服务建设,促进粮食产业的现代化。     

Towards better water governance in river basins: some lessons learned from the Volga

This article focuses on the problems of water governance at a river basin level, and on the role of institutional coordination, participation and partnerships between multiple stakeholders towards sustainable water management. Its approach presupposes that institutional capacity building, strengthening coordination between government institutions (vertical and horizontal), on the one hand, and broadening participation and consolidating partnerships between public, private and civil society actors, on the other hand, is among effective tools in integrated water resource management in river basins. It explores environmental challenges, problems, emerging trends and recent institutional innovations in the Volga basin in Russia—the largest river basin in Europe. Transfer and adaptation of good practices in good water governance between the EU and Russia are discussed. This article presents some research findings and lessons learned from practice by the EC international project ‘CABRI—Cooperation along a big river: Institutional coordination among stakeholders for environmental risk management in the Volga basin’, which is assessed as one of the selected success stories of the European research.’     

Energy and temperature performance analysis of geothermal (ground source) heat pumps integrated with permeable pavement systems for urban run-off reuse

Geothermal (ground source) heat pumps (GHP) and permeable pavement systems (PPS) have demonstrated their effectiveness in both industry and academic research during recent decades. To meet the rising demand for sustainable, recyclable and energy efficient techniques, research has focused on the combination of techniques to enhance existing or develop new applications.

This paper reports on an experimental programme that combined GHP with PPS for nutrient removal and system energy balancing. Experimental data collected over a 3-year period have provided evidence of highly efficient removal rates of up to 99% for ammonia–nitrate and biochemical oxygen demand; and 96% removal rates were obtained for orthophosphate–phosphorus. This paper also contains energy efficiency ratio (EER) and coefficient of performance (COP) calculations. Cyclic heat removal and heat rejection allowed for stable temperature and pump COP and EER sustainability. The results prove that PPS systems are appropriate for GHP installation, delivering high and stable pollutant removal with EER efficiencies between 1.5 and 5.5.

The combination of GHP with PPS has the potential to provide a new sustainable and eco-friendly practice.     

区域持续发展与地理信息系统的协调作用

环境与发展是当今人类社会所面临的两大主题,已引起各国政府和国际社会的广泛关注。持续发展代表了一种新的发展战略和我们从事经济活动的新方法。地理信息系统技术具有综合各种社会、经济和环境因素的能力,为科学决策和实现区域持续发展提供了一种强有力的工具。同时,地理信息系统为在区域持续发展中利用生态学方法、时序分析和科学决策提供了强有力的技术支持。在我国,区域持续发展已引起了越来越多的研究机构与政府部门的重视。应该注意到,实现这一目标离不开地理信息系统技术的支持。本文主要讨论地理信息系统对区域持续发展的作用和探讨建立区域持续发展的地理信息系统的理论模式。     

Science, Research, Knowledge and Capacity Building

A small part of the scientific community is seeking hard to enhance the contribution of science, knowledge and capacity building to environmentally sustainable and socially fair human development around the world. Many researchers over the globe share the same commitment – anchored in concerns for the human condition. They believe that science and research can and have influenced sustainability. Therefore their main goals are to seek and build up knowledge, know-how and capacity that might help to feed, nurture, house, educate and employ the world's growing human population while conserving its basic life support systems and biodiversity. They undertake projects, that are essentially integrative, and they try to connect the natural, social and engineering sciences, environment and development of communities, multiple stakeholders, geographic and temporal scales. More generally, scientists engaged in sustainable development are bridging the worlds of knowledge and action. This pro-active, heavily ethics- and wisdom-based "science for sustainability" can be seen as the conclusion of all dialogues and discussions amongst scientists at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002 in Johannesburg. The "Plan of Implementation" after WSSD will be based on political will, practical steps and partnerships with time-bound actions. Several "means of implementation" are going to be proofed and initiated: finance, trade, transfer of environmentally sound technology, and, last but not least, science and capacity building.Some characteristics of working scientific sustainability initiatives are that they are regional, place-based and solution-oriented. They are focusing at intermediate scales where multiple stresses intersect, where complexity is manageable, where integration is possible, where innovation happens, and where significant transitions toward sustainability can start bottom-up. And they have a fundamental character, addressing the unity of the nature – society system, asking how that interactive system is evolving and how it can be consciously, if imperfectly, steered through the reflective mobilization and application of appropriate knowledge and know-how. The aims of such sustainability-building initiatives conducted by researchers are: first to make significant progress toward expanding and deepening the research agenda of science and knowledge-building for sustainability; secondly to strengthen the infrastructure and capacity for conducting and applying science, research and technology for sustainability – everywhere in the world where it is needed; and thirdly, to connect science, policy and decision-making more effectively in pursuit of a faster transition towards real sustainable development. The overall characteristic is, that sustainability initiatives are mainly open-ended networks and dialogues for the better future. A world society that tries to turn towards sustainable development has to work hard to refine their clumsy technologies, in "earthing" their responsibility to all creatures and resources, in establishing democratic systems in peace and by heeding human rights, in building up global solidarity through all mankind and in commit themselves to a better life for the next generations.     

内蒙古生态屏障工程建设构想

生态屏障工程建设是内蒙古经济可持续发展的重大问题．也是国家实施西部大开发战略中的重要问题，本文从分析内蒙古生态环境建设所取得的成就和存在的问题入手。提出了内蒙古生态屏障的概念。构建了以区域建设战略重点为棱心辅八类生态建设区为外延面、十大重点生态工程为依托点。辅面结合、工程支撑。以优先重点建设的核心轴为突破口。向外分期逐步扩大生态建设的区域范围。保证内蒙古生态屏障工程最终全方位覆盖全区。从而构建成中国北方绿色生态屏障的建设思路。并从政策，法律、管理、技术、资金、监测系统等几个方面分别对内蒙古生态屏障工程建设的保障条件进行了阐述。     

毕节喀斯特石漠化治理生态农业模式构建

喀斯特石漠化已成为岩溶山区生态建设和社会经济可持续发展的重大障碍，受到各级政府、专家学者的高度重视和广泛关注。以贵州省毕节市老街村喀斯特石漠化土地利用为例，采用实地调查的方法获取研究数据，分析了研究区石漠化土地利用存在问题。在此基础上，遵循石漠化治理与产业化相结合原则、市场导向原则、替代产业培育原则、适地适种原则等喀斯特石漠化治理的一般原则；优化土地利用格局，设计由坡地保土耕作、桑草养殖、桑药种植、乡土廊道树篱、封山育林多种技术措施配套集成的综合治理方案，并通过与农村能源建设结合，构建桑草药粮种植＋蚕猪养殖＋沼气的生态农业发展模式，探索喀斯特石漠化区生态修复的有效途径。     

Analysis of building environment assessment frameworks and their implications for sustainability indicators

Green construction is gaining increasing attention in the global context. However, the construction of sustainable green buildings and environments involves different tools and systems and diverse perspectives. Therefore, the development of environmental assessment tools is an important task for managing green housing and green building projects. In this paper, we discuss the benefits, limitations, and future directions of the assessment framework. There are four characteristics of building environmental assessment, i.e., comprehensiveness, design guideline, signaling, and communication tools, which afford both benefits and limitations. We illustrate the role of the assessment framework as a hub promoting integration of diverse knowledge, as a design guideline encouraging better design and action, as signaling environmentally friendly design and action, and as a communication tool. On the other hand, there are limitations, such as the use of a mixture of quantitative and qualitative measures, ambiguity of weighing, lack of financial evaluation, and lack of involvement of diverse disciplines and stakeholders. To develop an effective assessment framework, the following three factors must be considered: knowledge, power, and implementation. We propose that knowledge innovation, a credible approach for a salient solution, and collective action represent the future challenges of the assessment framework.     

长江流域资源环境与区域发展研究的回顾及展望

资源与环境问题是影响和制约可持续发展的核心问题。对《长江流域资源与环境》1995年至2004年10年间发表的学术论文进行了统计分析，就论文所涉及的研究领域、论文所运用的研究方法、研究机构的类型与地域分布等特征进行了全面的归类分析和总结研究。认为资源环境科学与区域可持续发展在未来的研究过程中必须实现促进学科的交叉与渗透，实现学科的系统集成与整合发展；寻找科学研究中的薄弱环节和新的生长点，积极开辟新的研究领域； 强化各项新技术、新手段的应用，提高科学研究的技术水平；深化区域研究，提高区域研究的综合性水平四大突破，才能适应和满足学科发展及社会发展的需要。     

最近10年国外循环经济进展及对中国深化发展的启示

随着联合国确立2030全球可持续发展目标和巴黎会议通过应对气候变化的全球协议,循环经济在世界各国的发展得到越来越多的重视,正在与低碳经济一起作为绿色经济的两个支柱,纳入主流的理论研究和政策研究。过去10年来,受到中国发展循环经济的刺激,国外特别是欧洲国家为了占领绿色经济制高点,强化了循环经济的研究与实践,在理论研究、政策创新、企业实践等方面取得了一系列重要成果。这反过来可以对中国未来深化循环经济起到促进和激励作用。本文从三个方面总结和评论最近10年来国外循环经济的进展及其启示。首先,指出循环经济从60年前的思想萌芽,经过过去20年的发展,当前在政府、专门组织以及学术研究等多种力量的推动下,正在进入波澜壮阔的第三波。其次,概括过去10年欧洲国家在循环经济领域取得的进展和成果,指出循环经济的理论与实践出现了整合化、系统化的趋势,重要如EMF提出了循环经济的系统模型;战略思路实现了从治理废弃物向预防和减少废弃物的转变,重要如欧盟提出了发展循环经济的一揽子计划;强调循环经济对于21世纪企业发展和创新具有重大意义,重要如埃森哲咨询公司提出了循环型企业的五种类型,其中产品服务系统和基于互联网平台的分享经济正在成为循环型企业发展的新前沿。最后,在前述研究的基础上,针对中国循环经济发展如何走上新台阶,如何实现经济社会发展与物质流消耗的绝对脱钩,从建构循环经济整体模式以及政府、企业、消费者、研究者等利益相关者合作推动等方面提出了相应的建议。